APPARENTLY no-one in Government nor in the Cobra emergency meeting saw the crisis in petrol supplies coming.

A month ago, there was a short feature on BBC News saying that the tanker driver unions were balloting about strike action.

Anyone with any sense hearing that should have taken sensible precautions at that time, not when it is too late.

The Government clearly has a lot of work to do to prevent the Easter weekend being ruined, because a strike after Easter will provoke the same sort of panic over Easter as we have seen in the past few days.

If Francis Maude really is one of the thinkers behind government policy, we are clearly in big trouble.

He plainly has no idea that petrol supplies, like so much else in industry, work on a “just-in-time” delivery basis and that there are very few reserves at petrol stations.

How can a responsible politician not know that simple fact?

The advice he gave certainly led to panic-buying, wiping out supplies almost at once.

As for his jerrycan advice, perhaps he would like to come before the House of Commons to explain how much he knows about the rules for the safe storage of inflammable materials?

Of course, if you always have a government car and driver ready to whisk you away, it hardly matters, does it?

In fact, it will make ministerial travel much easier next week as other cars are forced off the road.

MARTIN ROBERTS, Stone Close, Botley, Oxford